February 10, 2004
The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We are writing about today’s press reports that “most”
White House officials are refusing to cooperate fully with the Justice
Department’s criminal investigation into the leak of the identity
of a covert CIA operative. These actions are impeding the Justice
Department’s investigation and are inconsistent with your
directives to White House officials to cooperate with the investigation.
We would like to know what steps you plan to take to address this
matter and to urge you to ensure that continued access to classified
materials is restricted to individuals who are willing to cooperate
fully with the Justice Department investigation.
As you know, Justice Department Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
is investigating the role of White House officials in leaking the
identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media. Ms.
Plame’s covert status was disclosed in an apparent attempt
to undercut the credibility of her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson
IV, who publicly refuted your 2002 State of the Union claim that
Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Niger.
As part of its investigation, the Justice Department has sought
the cooperation of White House officials in allowing media representatives
to discuss with investigators their conversations with White House
staff. The Justice Department has asked White House employees to
sign waivers requesting that “no member of the news media
assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions from federal
law enforcement authorities on my behalf or for my benefit.”1
According to press accounts today, however, many White House employees
are refusing to cooperate with the Justice Department requests.
The Washington Post reported that “most officials declined
to sign the form on advice of their attorneys.”2 Similarly,
the New York Times reported that “[s]everal lawyers said they
had refused to let their clients sign the agreements, unwilling
to create an additional legal liability voluntarily.”3
These actions directly contradict your explicit direction to cooperate
fully with the investigation. When asked about this waiver issue
on January 5, White House Press Spokesman Scott McClellan affirmed
eight different times that you instructed your staff to comply fully
with Justice Department requests.4
We do not question the right of any individual to seek the advice
of counsel and upon counsel’s advice to refuse to cooperate
with a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Under the
Fifth Amendment, individuals have a constitutional right not to
incriminate themselves.
There is, however, no constitutional right to have access to classified
information or to be entrusted with the nation’s most sensitive
security secrets. Individuals who receive access to the country’s
most critical and highly-guarded secrets have an obligation to cooperate
fully in investigations into security leaks. Individuals who seek
to impede security investigations — as these individuals have
done — are placing their own personal interests ahead of the
nation’s security interests.
We would like to know what steps you are taking to ensure that
the White House officials are complying with your directive to cooperate
with the Justice Department investigation. We would also like to
know whether you have limited continued access to national secrets
to individuals who are cooperating fully with the Justice Department
investigation. Simply put, individuals who are unwilling to assist
in discovering who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity should
not be trusted with continued access to our nation’s most
sensitive state secrets.
We thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Government Reform
John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on the Judiciary
1 Bush Aides Testify in Leak Probe, Washington Post (Feb. 10, 2004).
2 Id.
3 Top Bush Aide Is Questioned in CIA Leak, New York Times (Feb.
10, 2004).
4 White House Press Briefing, FDCH Political Transcripts (Jan. 5,
2004) (including the following statements: (1) “I would remind
you that the President has directed the White House to cooperate
fully with the career officials who are leading this investigation.
And that’s exactly what he expects the White House to continue
doing. We have been and we will continue to do so;” (2) “The
President has made it very clear that the White House should cooperate
fully in this investigation. The President said — has always
said that leaking classified information is a serious matter, and
certainly no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than he
does, so that we can find out the truth. And the President has said
from early on that if anybody has information, they should come
forward and share it with those who are leading this investigation;”
(3) “the President has made it very clear that he expects
the White House to cooperate fully;” (4) “the President
has made it very clear that we should cooperate fully with the investigation,
that the White House should cooperate fully in the investigation;”
(5) “The President made it very clear that he expects the
White House to cooperate fully in this investigation, because it’s
important that we do everything we can to help the career officials
get to the bottom of this, and the sooner, the better;” (6)
“I think the President has made it very clear. He expects
the White House to cooperate fully;” (7) “he has said
repeatedly, he wants the White House to cooperate fully, he wants
anyone who has information that can help in this investigation to
come forward with that information and provide it to those who are
leading this investigation;” and (8) “make no mistake
about it, the President was very clear in stating that everybody
— that the White House should cooperate fully in this investigation”).
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